Warriors Show Keen Usage Of Data Research In Refining Ticket Sales Process

February 7, 2013

While the Warriors have made it to the NBA playoffs "only once in the past 18 seasons," the team is "among just a handful" in the league to average home crowds of 18,000 or more in the last eight years, according to Joel Millman of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Warriors VP/Ticket Sales & Services Brandon Schneider has "spearheaded the emphasis on data to tailor marketing pitches." The team looks at data generated by Ticketmaster and resale-market sites such as StubHub, and "pores over weather forecasts and ticket sales from competing entertainment in the Bay Area." For example, the Warriors examine "how much ticket buyers historically paid" for a Tuesday night game against the Rockets versus a Friday night game against the Rockets. This helps the team "predict how much it can charge for tickets without curbing demand." The Warriors also use data when "planning to move the last unsold seats for a game with an online offer." The team will take its 200,000-person e-mail list and "break it into chunks, testing different times, different subject lines and different links in the body of the message to gauge what brings the quickest response." Schneider said, "We'll send 100,000 messages 10 minutes after a victory, and 100,000 the next day." Response time, tickets sold and the price point for each ticket tier "will determine how the team tailors future pitches." NBA Exec VP/Team Marketing & Business Operations Chris Granger said the Warriors are one of the league's "leading teams in terms of using data and analytics to improve their business." He added, "They won't make a move unless there is science to back it up." Millman notes even in the "losing years, the Warriors' ticketing department was successful in retaining and adding season-ticket holders." The Warriors since the start of this season have "added 2,659 prorated season-ticket packages, filling Oracle to 67% of capacity" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/7).